Corinne picked up a magazine that lay open on the table. She handed it to the other and pointed. “Read that,” she ordered.
Also here, the light was dim. The journal was one of respectable popular scholarship, like Smithsonian or National Geographic, Corinne indicated an advertisement near the back. Under the heading LONGEVITY STUDIES stood four column inches of text. The format was staid, the words discreet; most persons who noticed would find them dry, of interest to none except specialists. They leaped at Rosa: “—very long-lived individuals in excellent health ... young but prospectively long-lived are of similar interest.... scientific studies ... recollections of history as actually experienced ...”
Her hands began to shake. “Not again,” broke from her.
Corinne started, recovered, gave her a searching look, but asked merely, “What do you make of it?”
Rosa dropped the magazine and stared down at its cover. “Probably nothing,” she mumbled. “I mean, just what it says, somebody wants to, uh, examine and talk with folks who’ve gotten really old, or who might.”
“How old?”
Rosa lifted her glance. “I tell you, it can’t have anything to do with us!” she shrilled. “There are scientists trying to get a handle on what aging is, you know?”
Corinne shook her head. “The way this is phrased, somehow it doesn’t quite fit that,” she said slowly. “And how better might immortals try to get in touch with others like them?”
“It could be a scam. Or a trap.” Desperation chattered. “Don’t write to that box number, Laurace. Don’t. We’ve got too much to lose.”
“Or to gain? What are you afraid of?”
“What could happen to us. And our work, everything we’re doing.” Rosa aimed a jerky gesture at the curtained windows. “The Unity’11 fall apart without us. What’ll become of everybody that trusts us?”
Corinne’s gaze went in the same direction, as if it pierced through to the swamp of horrible decay in which this house stood like an island. “I’m not sure we’re doing much of anything any longer.”
“We are, we are. We’re saving some, at least. If we—tell anybody what we are—that’s the end. Nothing will ever be the same again.”
Corinne swung her vision back to Rosa, tautened, and pounced. “You’ve seen something like this already, haven’t you?”
“No.” The Syrian made fending motions. “I mean, well—”
“It escaped you. It’s written on you. Neither of us has stayed alive without getting pretty good at body language. Speak, or by God, I—I will contact this Willock fellow.”
Rosa shuddered. Resistance collapsed. She swiped at tears. “I’m sorry. Yeah, yes, I did. Had almost forgotten, it was so long ago. Nothing more came of it, so I thought there was nothing to it. Till now.”
“When? Where?”
“In the papers, then. I don’t remember the date, but it was shortly before the war, World War Two, that is.”
“About fifty years ago. Maybe exactly fifty years? Go on.”
“Well, it was an ad sort of like this. Not just the same, but, well, I wondered.”
“And you kept silent? You never called it to my attention.”
“I was scared!” Rosa screamed. “Like I am now!” She stumbled to a chair, sank onto its zebra hide, and wept.
After a little while Corinne went to her, bent down, laid arms about the bowed shoulders and cheek close to cheek.
“I understand, Aliyat, dear,” she murmured. “You hadn’t been with me but a few short years. You had finally, barely won to something good, something hopeful. After those dreadful centuries—yes, of course you were terrified of any change, and the change here would have been unforeseeable. Oh, I forgive you. You may even have been right.”
She straightened. “Still,” she said most softly, “that fifty-year interval is strong evidence for another immortal. Isn’t it? He or she wouldn’t risk a continuous campaign. The short-lived would be too likely to start wondering. Our kind has time, and learns patience.”
“How do you know what they’re like?” Rosa pleaded. “They could be bad. I told you how I met two men and— well, we didn’t get along. If they’re still alive, if they’re behind this, I wouldn’t put anything past them.”
Corinne’s tone parched. “I gather you made enemies of them. You had better pull yourself together and”explain, at long last, what did happen.” She waved a hand. “Not today, as overwrought as you are. And ... yes, we must certainly stay cautious. I’ll see what I can discover about Mr. Willock before deciding whether to contact him—and how, if I do.”
She gentled again: “Meanwhile, don’t worry too much, dear. We have resources. I haven’t told you in any detail. Secrecy does become a habit, doesn’t it? Besides, this kind of thing isn’t your metier. But over the years I’ve developed my own connections, including a few persons in key official positions.” The voice clanged. “We won’t stay passive. We’re not alone any more? Then we’ve got to claim our share in the world, or else make ready to defend what is ours.”
3
The tax examiner ruffled several sheets of paper and frowned across his desk. “I think we ought to see your client in person,” he said.
“I believed I,mentioned to you, Mr. Tomek is vacationing abroad,” Hanno replied with studied edginess. “I’ve shown you my power of attorney in this matter.”
“Yes, yes. However. Naturally, you may accompany him, Mr. Levine, if he wants legal counsel at his side.”
“Why? Have you any reason to suspect wrongdoing? I assure you, each detail in each one of his enterprises is in order. Haven’t I been able to answer every single question you’ve put, these past two hours?”
“We have barely begun, Mr. Levine. I have never seen so complicated a web of transactions and interlocking arrangements.”
“Go ahead and trace them out. If you turn up anything unlawful, I’ll be totally surprised, but I’ll be on call.” Hanno drew breath. “Mr. Tomek is an old man. He’s earned a long rest and as much pleasure as is possible at his age. I don’t think you can make any case for calling him in, and if you try, I intend to protest formally, as high up the ladder as necessary.” He left implied: Your superiors won’t thank you for that.
Nasty young corporation mercenary, said the examiner’s attitude, before he sagged a bit and his gray head bent. Fleetingly, Hanno pitied him. What a hell of a way to have spent the few worthwhile decades nature doled out, harassing people in their business and always with paper, never with more than a ghost of whatever blood-joy stirred in village busybody, religious inquisitor, state secret policeman.
Hanno dismissed the feeling: He’s making me waste this afternoon, and yes, doubtless the dreariness has just started. He calculated his conciliation. “No offense. You have your duty to do. And you’ll find us entirely cooperative. But—“ try for a laugh— “I guarantee you won’t make wages.”
The auditor smiled sourly. “I admit you’ve given me what we need to conduct a preliminary check. You understand, don’t you, we accuse nobody. It would be easy to make honest mistakes in this, uh, cat’s cradle.”
“Mr. Tomek’s staff keeps close track, you know. Now if you have no further need of me today, perhaps I should leave you to your work.”
He ought to be calmer, inside as well as outside, Hanno thought when he left. There was nothing worse to fear than a dismal nuisance, because Charles Tomek’s affairs were in truth defensible. Every last one of the many steps by which a gross income of millions became a taxable income of some hundred thousands, was legal. Let IRS try its meanest. Not only governments could use computers. Human beings could.
And Washington had no state income tax yet. That had been one strong reason among many for moving to Seattle. For that matter, he hadn’t really shot the afternoon. Thinking he might, he had made no other commitments; much of die long summer day remained for him to enjoy.
Nevertheless the session rankled. He knew why. I’ve been spoiled, he thought. Once this w
as a free country. Oh, I always knew that couldn’t last, that here too things were bound to grind back to the norm—masters and serfs, whatever names they go by. And so far we continue happier than most of the world ever was. But damn, modern democracy has the technology to regiment us beyond anything Caesar, Torquemada, Suleyman, or Louis XIV dared dream of.
He sighed, standing in the elevator, suppressing the wish for a smoke although he was alone. Quite apart from the laws that multiplied around him tike bacteria, he owed consideration to the lungs of poor, vulnerable mortals. Indeed, be hadn’t brought his tax liability down as far as he could have. A man who lived in a country ought to contribute his fair share to its maintenance and defense. Everything else was extortion.
John Wanderer disagrees, Hanno reflected. He speaks of human needs, threatened biosphere, scientific mysteries, and says it’s romanticism to suppose private enterprise can cope with them all. No doubt he’s right to some extent. But where do you draw the line?
Maybe I’ve been around too long, maybe it’s prejudiced me. But I remember, for example, those glorious public works that government gave to Egypt, century after century, and how they benefitted the people—pyramids, statues of Rameses II, grain tribute to Rome, Aswan Dam. I remember small shops I’ve closed, men and women thrown out of jobs, because the regulations and required record-keeping changed them to losing propositions.
He came forth into downtown. A wind, strong and cold, thrust odors of salt water through automobile stench. Sunlight spilled from heaven. Crowds bustled. A street musician fiddled a tune he liked, to judge by his stance and his face. The wind flapped the skirts of a particularly delicious girl, as brave a sight as Old Glory on her staff above one building. The vitality caught at Hanno, blew the darkness out of him.
For a minute, practicality lingered. He must consider seriously, and soon, phasing out Charles Tomek. Death and cremation abroad, widower, childless, assets willed to various individuals and certain foundations. ... In due course Toraek’s pet lawyer had better move away, drop out of sight. That would be much simpler to arrange; hundreds or thousands of men hi the United States must bear the name Joseph Levine ... And the dozen additional identities in four different countries, ranging from magazine publisher to day laborer, yes, they ail needed attention. Those which he had created as boltholes, mere camouflage, against a day of need, probably remained safe. Others, though, were for diversification, so he could be active, carry out his undertakings and investments, without making any of them unduly noticeable; and by now some of them, such as Tannahill, were becoming so. How long could he keep up the dance?
How long did he actually wish to? He well understood that his resentment of the modem state sprang in large part from its erosion of privacy; and privacy, like liberty, was a pretty new and fragile idea. Gods damn it, he was a seaman, he wanted a deck again under his feet. But for most of the twentieth century,he had only been able to operate, if he would keep his secret, in offices, by mail and wire and telephone and computer, chasing paper profits, hardly better off—except for his yachts, women, feasts, luxuries, travels, and the hunt that was his ultimate purpose in life—hardly better off than that poor publican, his enemy.
To what end? Wealth? It was a Phoenician’s way to strength. But how much strength would he ever find use for? No amount of money would stave off a nuclear warhead. At best, it would buy refuge for him and his, and the means to start over once the ashes had settled. For that, a million or two dollars were ample. Meanwhile, why not shut down his businesses hi the course of the next ten or a dozen years, then take a holiday for whatever time this civilization hung together? Didn’t he deserve it?
Did his comrades want that, though? They were so earnest hi their different ways, those three. And, of course, any day his renewed search might turn up others. Or anything else might happen.
The wind whooped. Suddenly Hanno laughed aloud with it. He ignored the stares he got. Maybe living through history had made him a touch paranoid. Yet he had also learned from it that every hour of freedom was a precious gift, to be savored in fullness and stored away where thieves could not break in and steal. Here half a beautiful afternoon and a whole evening had fallen into his hands. What to do with them?
A drink in the revolving bar on the Space Needle? The view of mountains and water was incomparable, and Lord knew ‘when the next clear day would happen along. No. This past interview had driven him too much into himself. He desired companionship. Natalia was still at work, pridefully and wisely declining to let nun support her. Tu Shan and Asagao were afar in Idaho, John Wanderer in the Olympics on one of his backpacking trips. He could drop into, say, Ernmett Watson’s for a beer and some oysters and general friendliness—no, the danger of meeting a self-appointed poet was too great. Jokes aside, he didn’t feel like chitchat with somebody he’d never see again.
That left a single possibility; and he hadn’t visited Gian-notti’s lab for quite a spell. Nothing spectacular could have happened there or he’d have been notified, but it was always interesting to get a personal progress report.
By the time of that decision, Hanno had reached the lot where he left the Buick registered to Joe Levine. He considered driving straight to his destination. Surely no one had put a tail on him. But accidents could happen, and sometimes did. Immortality made caution a habit. Moreover, he intended to end up with Natalia. Therefore he bucked through traffic to Levine’s place near the International District. It had parking of its own. In the apartment he opened a concealed safe and exchanged Levine’s assorted identification cards for Robert Cauldwell’s. A taxi brought him to a public garage where Cauldwell rented a space. Entering the Mitsubishi that waited, he returned to the streets.
He liked this tightly purring machine much better. Damn, it seemed only yesterday that Detroit was making the best cars for their price on earth.
His goal was a plain brick building, a converted warehouse, in a tight-industry section between Green Lake and the University campus. A brass plate on its door read RUFUS MEMORIAL INSTITUTE. Those who asked were told that Mr. Rufus had been a friend of Mr. Cauldwell, the shipowner who endowed this laboratory for fundamental biological science. That satisfied their curiosity. The work being done interested them much more, emphasizing as it did molecular cytology and the effort to discover what made living beings grow old.
It had been a plausible way for Cauldwell to dispose of his properties and retire into obscurity. Two magnate identities were more than Hanno could maintain after the government got thoroughly meddlesome. Tomek was pulling in the most money by then, and leaving less of a trail. Besides, this might offer a hope—
Director Samuel Giannotti was at his workbench. The staff was small though choice, administration was kept to an unfussy minimum, and he continued to be a practicing scientist. When Hanno arrived, he took time to shut down his experiment properly before escorting the founder to his office. It was a book-lined room as comfortably rumpled-look-ing as his large, bald-headed self. A swivel chair stood available for each man. Giannotti fetched Scotch from a cabinet, ice and soda from a fridge, and mixed mild drinks while Hanno charged his pipe.
“I wish you’d .give that foul thing up,” Giannotti said, settling down. His voice was amicable. The seat creaked to his weight. “Where’d you get it, anyway? From King Tutankhamen?”
“Before my time,” Hanno drawled. “Do you mind? I know you’ve quit, but I didn’t expect you’d take the Chris-ter attitude of so many ex-smokers.”
“No, in my line of work we get used to stenches.”
“Good. How’s that line go from Chesterton?”
“’If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals it is the modern strengthening of minor morals,’” quoted Giannotti, who was a devotee. “Or else, later in the same essay, ‘It is the great peril of our society that all its mechanism may grow more fixed while its spirit grows more fickle.’ Not that I’ve often heard you worry about morals or the spirit.”
“I
don’t worry aloud about the oxygen supply, either—”
“Obviously.”
“—or the other necessities of survival. It would annoy me less that we’re heading into a new puritanical era if the puri-tanism concerned itself about things that matter.” Hanno struck match to tobacco and drew the fire alight.
“Well, I worry about you. Okay, your body has recovered from traumas that would have finished off any of us ordinaries, but that doesn’t mean your immortality is absolute. A bullet or a swig of cyanide would kill you as easily as me. I’m not at all convinced your cells can stand that kind of chemical insult forever.”
“Pipe smokers don’t inhale, and for me cigarettes are faute de mieux.” Hanno’s brows knotted slightly. “Just the same ... do you have any solid scientific reason for what you said?”
“No,” Giannotti admitted. “Not yet.”
“What are you turning up lately, if anything?”
Giannotti sipped from his glass. “We’ve learned of some very interesting work in Britain. Fairweather at Oxford. It looks as though the rate at which cellular DNA loses methyl groups is correlated with lifespan, at least in the animals that have been studied. Jaime Escobar here is setting up to pursue this line of inquiry further. I myself will re-examine cells of yours from the same viewpoint, with special reference to glycosylation of proteins. On the QT, of course. I’d like fresh material from the four of you, blood, skin, biopsy sample of muscle tissue, to start new cultures for the purpose.”
“Any time you want, Sam. But what does this signify, exactly?”
“You mean ‘What might it signify, at a guess?’ We know little thus far. Well, I’ll try to sketch it out for you, but I’ll have to repeat stuff I’ve told you before.”
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